The Muse.

ZannaPerry · Aug 4, 2007

Finding your muse can be tricky, or it can be your best friend. Mine tends to hide from me. All the time. I always say he's taking a nice vacation down at Gulf Shores, Alabama...leaving me here in old Indiana letting my imagination rot without a single word to write.

Well.....when does yours tend to kick in???

Usually, like last night (this morning) for example, it was almost 4 o'clock in the morning and I was about to fall asleep when my muse decides to kick me in the gut with a great idea! I dragged my half asleep body to a notebook, and in the dark I scribbled down my idea then went back to sleep. This morning I looked at what I wrote and it was a great idea.

But yes, my muse ALWAYS kicks into overdrive right before I close my eyes and sleep the night away.....
:hooray:

Manderley · Aug 4, 2007

My muse likes two things: movements and routine. She'll bring me ideas when I'm out walking, driving, or watching water fall, and if I write regularly she'll visit me for a vitamin injection on a regular basis. If I only write sporadically, she'll usually be hanging out with my friends, giving all the good stuff to them instead.

JoNightshade · Aug 4, 2007

Hmmm, I do not keep a muse. I am selfish and want all the credit for myself.

KTC · Aug 4, 2007

I don't really believe in the muse thing. I look at it this way...when you're on dial up, you have to connect to the internet...but if you're on cable you just have to open it and go. I don't have to dial up. I'm always connected. So, I suppose I have a muse, he's just always with me. I can start typing any time any place and something will come out. I don't have to click in to this muse-like character who holds onto and owns my creative powers. Which is not to say I don't give it some kind of weight. I've written and sold articles on the muse...especially poetic muses.

scarletpeaches · Aug 4, 2007

Funnily enough, my muse tends to show up when I get my arse in the chair and start writing.

mscelina · Aug 4, 2007

The name of my website is Shoot The Muse! That should tell you everything you need to know.

Shady Lane · Aug 4, 2007

I don't understand this muse talk. It's not that I don't believe in it; it's that I actually don't understand it.

mscelina · Aug 4, 2007

The Muses were Greco-Roman goddesses who were responsible for the creative arts. For example, Erato was the patroness of romantic poetry, Calliope was the patroness of epic poetry, Clio of history, etc. Ancient writers used to invoke the Muses at the beginining of their works--Homer, Virgil, Dante--even writers like Edna St Vincent Millay called the Muses to inspire their poetry and/or prose. If a writer depends upon the Muse, then he or she writes as a result of inspiration and not the time-clock-punching methods that a writer like me enjoys. The invocation of the Muse is now considered a literary device used by a writer to establish their storyteller's voice in their work.

*grin*

That help?

Shady Lane · Aug 4, 2007

Oh, I should have been clearer. I'm a Greek myth freak; I know all the history. I just don't really understand how it's relevent now. Do people really imagine some spirit-whatever inspiring them to write?

mscelina · Aug 4, 2007

no, not really. It's just a literary device used by a lot of poets and now it's evolved into writers' slang. Whereas once writers called upon the Muses to inspire them, now when we have writer's block we BLAME the muses.

Shady Lane · Aug 4, 2007

Gotcha. Thanks.

JasonChirevas · Aug 4, 2007

scarletpeaches said:
Funnily enough, my muse tends to show up when I get my arse in the chair and start writing.

Isn't that always the way?

Yeah, there aren't muses.

-Jason

Chasing the Horizon · Aug 4, 2007

I have a detailed outline that says what I need to write. Creativity is quite optional (and all too often gets in my way). I've been writing long enough and have written enough words that I don't rely on anything so mystical as a 'muse'. There have only been three days out of the past three months when I haven't done at least some writing (two because I was sick and one because it was the premier of Pirate of the Caribbean and I was too excited to concentrate on anything else). I put my butt in the chair, my hands on the keyboard, and write. Simple as that.

Now, if I just had the discipline not to sit around AW procrastinating so much . . .

reenkam · Aug 4, 2007

Hope To The Horizon said:
Creativity is quite optional (and all too often gets in my way).

So you're writing isn't creative?

Jack_Roberts · Aug 4, 2007

My muse?

When I walk the dogs at night under the full moon when the crickets chirp. A soft voice beckons me. When I step outside at 3 am because my dog has to go and I see the neighborhood kittens scrambling away into the darkness, startled at my arrival, like they would be startled if a strange bat with a tuff of crimson hair swooped down for a snack.
Sometimes she is content to allow me to take time away. But she’s not always so generous. Other times she pounds into my head, “Write about me. Tell my story. Edit my story. Submit it to the mortals.”
“Do it NOW!” her child voice shouts, demanding her will. She gets that way sometimes. Really bugs her brother. I do as she says. I won't argue with a 300 yr old vampire child.

Sassee · Aug 4, 2007

I can't make myself write. My brain (or my muse, however you want to look at it) decides randomly when I'm going to have a creative spurt. I could sit myself down in a chair and try to make myself write, but often times it just means I'll spend three hours pulling one paragraph out of my very reluctant head. Then when I'm about to go to sleep I suddenly get a very good idea and have to go write about it. Or sometimes this urge strikes me in the middle of the work day when I'm bored to tears. Or maybe while I'm grocery shopping. It's very, very random. I don't like blaming myself for lack of discipline so I blame it on the muse. Random little bitch. lol!

(somewhere on this site there was a describe your muse thread...)

Fox The Cave · Aug 4, 2007

My muse is a teasing bitch, but when she gets going, she's goooood.

'Nuff said.

Chasing the Horizon · Aug 4, 2007

reenkam said:
So you're writing isn't creative?

The ideas and characters are creative, but converting that creativity into an actual is novel is almost entirely skill. Once I have the characters and plot, putting it on paper is simply a matter of sitting down and doing it. Creativity gets in my way because I always have at least five or six 'great' ideas, and not nearly enough time to write them all (and tend to end up starting far more than I should at once).

When I first started writing I thought I needed some sort of mystical muse in order to write too, but eventually I discovered that feeling inspired only made me motivated, and that if I chose to sit down and write when I didn't feel like it, the quality of what I produced was virtually identical to the times I felt 'inspired'. (How's that for a run-on sentence?)

I look at writing as a job, and I go to work whether I feel like going or not. Currently it's not a job I'm getting paid for, nor would anyone else know if I didn't work on a given day, but I would know, and I'm not a lenient boss.

Out of curiosity, how do those of you relying on inspiration or a 'muse' intend to handle it once you're published (or how are you handling it, if you're already published?)? When you have a contract and deadlines and your muse suddenly takes an extended vacation, what will/do you do? Miss the deadline? Submit uninspired crap written without the muse's assistance?

scarletpeaches · Aug 4, 2007

JasonChirevas said:
Isn't that always the way?

Yeah, there aren't muses.

-Jason

I am not a-mused.

Esopha · Aug 4, 2007

I am my own muse. Oh, and my characters are muses themselves. They do whatever they want. I'm resigned to my fate as the chick who follows them around like a derranged paparazzi reporter, writing down every move they make.

The_Grand_Duchess · Aug 4, 2007

My chars are what drives my writing. Thier all taking a backseat right now becuase of my own personal tragdy but I'm expecting someone to come a knocking soon. Just a gentle rapping and whisper of, "Hey! Enough of all that! Get back to work!" and then I'll be off to the races again.

I'm hearing Liala's theme song live in a few short weeks and the soundtrack for TCFSR as well soooooo I'm sure I'll be back in the saddle momentarily.

Shadow_Ferret · Aug 4, 2007

Shady Lane said:
Oh, I should have been clearer. I'm a Greek myth freak; I know all the history. I just don't really understand how it's relevent now. Do people really imagine some spirit-whatever inspiring them to write?

Yes. Of course. Are you saying you don't believe in Muses?

Doogs · Aug 4, 2007

Manderley said:
My muse likes two things: movements and routine.

This.

My muse, such as she is, also prefers when I write outdoors, beneath the open sky. I actually read something recently about ceiling height having an impact on critical thinking, productivity, and the like, so maybe there's something to that.

reenkam · Aug 4, 2007

Hope To The Horizon said:
Out of curiosity, how do those of you relying on inspiration or a 'muse' intend to handle it once you're published (or how are you handling it, if you're already published?)? When you have a contract and deadlines and your muse suddenly takes an extended vacation, what will/do you do? Miss the deadline? Submit uninspired crap written without the muse's assistance?

I don't know about all this muse stuff, because I don't hear anyone telling me what to write, but I do know that I have days where I just can't write. I wouldn't even call it writer's block or anything (I know how some of you feel about that). I just can't write anything. Well, nothing worth reading.

Sure I could sit myself down and write. I do that all the time. But I'll just end up deleting what I wrote (did that yesterday). It's not as good as what I write when I actually feel inspired or when the story is actually flowing. Is that my muse? I guess some people might say so...

Anyway, if I get published...I mean, when I get published, I don't see myself having problems with deadlines. I'm never uninspired for longer than a day or two. And when it comes back I can usually make up for those missed hours just fine. Sometimes all at once.

So while I don't really get the whole muse thing, I still don't see how making yourself sit down to write like it's a job could ever give you material as good as what you write when you feel like it, not when you must.

Patricia · Aug 4, 2007

scarletpeaches said:
Funnily enough, my muse tends to show up when I get my arse in the chair and start writing.

You too? I thought I was unique.

The Muse.

^ Just Me & a Sharpie

Slowly does it.

has finally arrived

Stand in the Place Where You Live

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you

my name is hannah

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you

my name is hannah

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you

my name is hannah

Blowing in the Wind

aka cupcake

Scribe of my muse, Annabelle

Momma Wolf

I get cancer. I kill Jack.

Blowing in the Wind

bam pow zap.

I record everything.

Court Jester

aka cupcake

California Dreaming